March, 2009Bank of America Wins Round in Battle with High-Balance Credit Cardholders
A federal appeals court has awarded Bank of America Corp. the right to retroactively raise interest rates to punish high-balance cardholders who go over their credit limits too often. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago denied claims by Bank of America cardholders, who filed a class-action lawsuit alleging the Truth in Lending Act prevented the bank from imposing a 32-percent interest rate retroactively for an entire month after they exceeded their credit limits too many times. The appeals …
Continue →Post-Gastrointestinal Tumor Surgery Drug May Prevent Tumor Recurrence, Researchers Find
Gleevec, a Novartis drug for treatment of patients who have undergone surgery to remove gastrointestinial stromal tumors (GIST), may reduce the chance that the cancerous tumors will return, according to new research. GIST are the most common form of soft-tissue cancer of the intestinal tract, accounting for about 4,000 new cases diagnosed in the United States each year. In most cases, GIST appear in the stomach or small intestine. Gleevec, which in generic form is called imatinib, was approved in …
Continue →Should Drug Makers Be Given a Mulligan on Negative Clinical Studies? Disturbing Details Emerge From ‘Buried’ Seroquel Study
Results from a clinical study of the antipsychotic drug Seroquel, which were buried by the drug’s maker, AstraZeneca, show the drug caused patients to gain weight, exposing them to an increased risk of developing diabetes and other blood sugar disorders.
Continue →Madoff’s Lawyers Argue For Release on Bail
Should Bernard Madoff, who admits running the largest financial fraud in Wall Street history, spend the next few months awaiting sentencing in a cramped New York City jail cell or inside his lavish $7 million Manhattan penthouse apartment?
Continue →Kellogg CEO Calls for Overhaul of U.S. Food Safety Policies
The chief officer of cereal and food maker Kellogg Co. says the United States should dramatically change the way it regulates the food industry to better prevent deadly and costly outbreaks of contaminated products. As part of the overhaul, Kellogg’s CEO David Mackay is set to testify today before a Congressional hearing that the job of policing food companies should be moved from the Food and Drug Administration and placed in a newly created branch of the Health and Human …
Continue →Desktop Computers Recalled By Acer America Corp. Due to Overheating, Burn Hazard
The insulation on the computer’s internal wiring can become bent or stripped, causing the wires to overheat while the product is in use. This poses a burn hazard to consumers.
Continue →Insulin Pens: Risk of Transmission of Blood-borne Pathogens from Shared Use
Audience: Healthcare professionals, patients [Posted 03/19/2009] The FDA notified healthcare providers and patients that insulin pens and insulin cartridges are never to be shared among patients. Sharing of insulin pens may result in transmission of…
Younger Blacks More Prone to Heart Failure, New Research Shows
Black men and women are 20 times more likely to develop heart failure at a younger age than whites, a disparity which researchers chalk up to higher rates of obesity, high blood pressure, and kidney problems among blacks. One in 100 blacks will develop heart failure before reaching age 50, a rate which is 20 times higher than that for whites, according to researchers who published their results in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine. Heart failure – when …
Continue →Makers of Drop-Side Cribs Propose Ban After Years of Infant Deaths, Injuries, and Recalls
Cribs with drop-sides may soon be a thing of the past in the United States after some of the largest makers and sellers of the popular infant furniture agreed to a ban. The proposed industry-wide ban, preliminarily agreed to this week at a meeting of major crib manufacturers and retailers including Toys “R” Us, must be finalized before it can go into effect. It was introduced at a meeting of ASTM International, a group including crib manufacturers, product safety officials, …
Continue →CPSC Warns that 9 Out of 10 Unintentional Child Poisonings Occur in the Home
Each year, unintentional poisonings from consumer products commonly found in the home kill about 30 children and prompt more than 2 million calls to the nation’s poison control centers. More than 90% of these calls involve poisonings in the home. On average, each year an estimated 80,000 children are treated in hospital emergency departments for unintentional poisonings.
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